[This was first published on July 15, 2009 by The Washington Examiner]

Honduras is a very small Central American republic with a population of 7.5 million
and an area about the size of Louisiana. Christopher Columbus landed in the country
on one of his later voyages, and the nation is still the home of seven distinct
indigenous tribes, some of them descended from the Mayans who created a
significant culture in this part of the world more than a thousand years ago.

Originally a Spanish colony, Honduras received nominal independence in 1821, but
has struggled with oligarchic rule since then. President Manuel Zelaya was removed
from office several days ago by the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress.

Someone from his own party was named as interim president, and a new election
was promised for this coming fall. Zelaya was arrested by the nation’s military at
his home, and put on a plane for Costa Rica.

His supporters in and out of Honduras have called this an illegal coup, but in reality
it was Zelaya who was attempting a coup of his own by holding an illegal plebiscite
that would have enabled him to run for president again, which is prohibited by the
Honduran Constitution. His removal, while extraordinary, was legal, and his claims
now to be the legitimate president of Honduras are invalid.

Zelaya is part of a small group of Central and South American leaders, each
originally legitimately elected, but who, having tasted power, don’t want to give it
up. Constitutions, the rule of law, free enterprise, and elections, in their view, are
obstacles to be manipulated or simply put aside. In effect, they really want to
return to the old politics of the dictators who ruled in the previous world of
Hispanic-American politics.

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is the most notorious of this group, which also includes
Evo Morales of Bolivia and Fidel Castro of Cuba (who has been the communist
dictator of Cuba for 50 years).

It was no surprise then that Chavez and his cohorts came immediately to the
defense of Zelaya, and it was not unexpected that the Organization of American
States and the United Nations, both left-dominated organizations, would join in an
effort to overturn the actions of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court.

The surprise was that President Barack Obama joined in and supported the
transparently false claims that Zelaya had been wrongfully removed from office.
Obama’s motive, I believe, was to counter the propaganda advantage that normally
is ceded to Chavez and his fellow demagogues, and in that sense he was probably
successful in the short term.

The problem for the new American president, however, is that the U.S. is the
leading advocate and protector of democracies, large and small, in the world. Now
he has sent a very contradictory message to the region and the international
community.

Acting President Roberto Micheletti of Honduras is a man who shows no signs of
seeking or keeping political power. He’s even a member of the ousted president’s
own party. An interesting development here is that the military cooperated with
and has followed the orders of Honduran democratic institutions, and have not
attempted to take power for themselves (as has happened in this region so often
in the past).

Most Hondurans seem genuinely determined to keep their young, new republic/
democracy and to resist efforts to return the nation to dictatorial rule, from either
the left or the right.

The young Obama administration has allowed abstract strategic maneuvering to
override the important and traditional U.S. role as champion of democracy. Now
the U.S. appears, in this case, to be in political bed with those who champion
Marxist totalitarianism.

If the forces of political and economic freedom in Honduras and elsewhere think
the U.S. has abandoned them, they will soon be overrun by the reactionary forces
that threaten them.

Brave little Honduras, however, is not caving in. Small and isolated, it does not
want to return to the days of “banana republics” and the chronic oppression of its
people. There is still time for Obama to change course and do the right thing.

Viva Honduras democratica!

[ADDENDUM ON JULY 19, 2009: While agreeing that former President Zelaya had
acted illegally by trying to stage a plebiscite, and that he should not be allowed to
run again, some readers have suggested that his removal by the Honduran
congress and supreme court was itself illegal. This argument has been also used
by Sres. Castro, Chavez, Morales AND our own President Obama to justify Zelaya
to return and finish out his term, I have now read the Honduran constitution, and
although it does have an impeachment process, its Article 239 states that no one
may serve more than one term as president, and that anyone who tries to do so,
OR TRIES TO CHANGE ARTICLE 239, automatically defaults his official position.
Thus, Zelaya was actually removed from office by the Honduras constitution. The
supreme court was only doing its job in formally declaring the obvious. The
provisional president, Sr. Micheletti, was the president of the congress and a
member of Zelaya's own party, so he was the natural person to take over. A new
election has been called. The provisonal government is doing the right things for
the right reasons. My original point has thus been reinforced. Readers should
note that Sr. Zelaya, who has been trying to bully his way back into Honduras,
has now called for a revolution. Make no mistake, he means a Marxist revolution.
President Obama is backing the wrong horse for the wrong reasons.]

Copyright (c) 2009 by Barry Casselman
All rights reserved.